there was a really cool What if...wolverine lived in the age of conan. first thing ol' snikt bub does when he arrives is kick red sonja's ass till she begs to be his cumdumpster. conan is transported to the 616 right at the climax of the dark phoenix saga.

ds615:Max Awesome: That series was always so ridiculously bleak. Everytime I read an issue I was struck by the realization that these Marvel 'heroes' were all complete psychopaths and all it took was a single slight change in events for them to freak out and start murdering everybody in sight.

That's true of pretty much everyone, not just "heroes".No one is a killer until they are.And what does it take to make you one? A "slight change in events", that's all.

I don't believe that. I have more faith in human nature and that a person's essential humanity can't be degraded by a few negative experiences.

I was always seriously disturbed by 'What If' - that the writers and editors at Marvel Comics had utterly no faith in the essential stability and decency of their superheroes.

Isn't the whole point of being heroic the ability to wheather a storm and do the right thing even in the most trying of circumstances?

farbekrieg:being an old fart what always struck me about the what if series is that it was always the worst drawn comic on the rack.

/awful just awful

Probably had the worst regular sales as it played off the storylines of all the other marvel comics. It featured a different set of heroes every month, so maybe an x-men reader picked it up in march, a fantastic four reader in april. Dunno if it had a regular writer at any point, but I doubt it.

My favorite, simply due to the irony, is 'what if Frank Castle's family doesn't die'. The answer? They die anyway, just not due to Mafia retaliation, and he becomes the Punisher regardless. Really stupid, but I got a kick out of reading it.

Also, there's a few 'what ifs' done to the Star Wars universe that're completely awesome... one involves Yoda hitting the Emperor with the entire farking Death Star.

As depressing as some of the What If...? issues were, some of the Elseworlds were goddamn soul-shattering. I remember one w/The Flash when some psycho scientist was trying to clone him but kept getting it wrong. He leads Flash to a corridor of glass rooms, each containing a boy--young Flash clones. One clone was completely paralyzed but had a mind thousands of times sharper and faster than Stephen Hawking but no way to move or communicate. Another couldn't stop vibrating and was slowly killing himself because his internal organs were liquefying. One looked like a manta ray. Can't remember the issue or much about the plot but I remember how these poor kids were just trapped in these horrible lives.

The most depressing Elseworlds was the one where Superman lands in Medieval England. Lord Luther rapes Lois to death on her wedding night. It ends with Luther and Superman killing each other.

Become? I take it you didn't read the actual old-school pulps (the ones without pictures). That was a pretty big part of his character. Along with laziness, dirty fighting, general greed and, weirdly, superior intelligence on the level of Batman.

//Really fun character, sort of Superman but with no blatantly supernatural powers and more uncomfortable racial and nationalist themes.

Fano:Got nothin' on Tangled Web, which tells the tale of Crusher Hogan, the time Rhino got smart, what happened to a bully that knew how spidey got his powers and tried to emulate him, Norman chatting with other villains and seeing how pitiful the Vulture is, what happens to loyal minions of Kingpin every time Spidey succeeds.

That minion story ("Severance Package" was a fabulous piece of work; I forget who did the story but the art was by the great Eduardo Risso, who worked on 100 Bullets with Brian Azzarello and draws crime like almost no one else. (Checking Wiki, of COURSE the story was by Greg Rucka.)

I think my favorite one is a Punisher book, even though I really dislike him as a character. Punisher inherits the symbiote suit and goes on a massive criminal killing spree. Turns out, Frank is one of the few people whose own hate and drive can keep the symbiote in check. It's a pretty cool issue.

me too. i consider What If? among the most under rated series of good books. they are for true fans that enjoy possibilities. on the plus side, since greedy collectors don't appreciate the excellence of the series one can put together the first run very economically. newer issues - all newer title issues - are just too expensive.

quiotu:My favorite, simply due to the irony, is 'what if Frank Castle's family doesn't die'. The answer? They die anyway, just not due to Mafia retaliation, and he becomes the Punisher regardless. Really stupid, but I got a kick out of reading it.

Now see that could be good if taken literally. Castle's family discover they're immortals and use their longevity to fight evil over the course of centuries until they're stuck with white-haired hulk from "the end." Frank dies a happy man, but centuries later, the Castles grow tired of each other's shiat and destroy the earth, floating around in space forever.

Kangaroo_Ralph:[What If? #43: ‶What If Conan the Barbarian were Stranded in the 20th Century?"]

Spoiler: Conan became a pimp.

That one had two stories, and was the only issue of the first run which consisted of sequels to previousWhat-If?s. The cover story was a sequel to What If? #13, ‶What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?". That one was a What If?of a What If?, because at the end of #13, Conan gets returned to his own time. The cover story of #43 shows What If he didn′t get back to his own time, by barely missing his chance to do so.

The second story has no title, and is a true continuation of its original story (What If? #23, ‶What If the Avengers had Become the Pawns of Korvac?"), not a What If? of a What If?. Both the original and this untitled sequel were written by the sadly late, great Mark Gruenwald.

It′s also a story that could′ve changed the entire future of the Marvel Comics Universe, had something happened in the real world. That something would be a sequel to this sequel, in a sense: ‶What If Kurt Busiek had Glanced at the Untitled Backup Story in What If? #32 (and, in Particular, the Bottom Middle Panel of the Second-to-Last Page Thereof) Before Telling John Byrne how Jean Grey could be made Available for X-Factor (as Byrne revealed in Fantastic Four #286) Despite her Sacrifice as Phœnix?"

How wildly different the Marvel Universe may be today if only Busiek had read that story! In those two issues (the first story seemingly having little to do with Jean/Phœnix, who only appears in one panel), Gruenwald had set up a vastly superior way to bring Jean Grey back, without undoing her heroic sacrifice in the classic Uncanny X-Men #137, and without claiming that Phœnix was never really Jean Grey in the first place (yeah, the Phœnix Entity not only managed to fool Professor X′s telepathy on multiple occasions, and Wolverine′s enhanced senses throughout the duration of her presence on the team despite not even being a real carbon-based biological lifeform, but she even fooled Uatu the Watcher himself [whose senses were supposed to be at least on the level of the Norse god Heimdall!] ― in the aforementioned UXM#137, the Watcher opens by saying [to the Recorder, but we don′t find that out until the end], ‶I beheld the birth of Jean Grey, watched her grow from child to woman, saw her take her place as one of the X-Men. I saw her die, and I saw her reborn as Phœnix."! And, at the end, he says to the Recorder, ‶Jean Grey could′ve lived to become a god, but it was more important to her that she die a human.").

If you actually have that comic, read that backup story. Reading #32 would be nice backstory, but not absolutely required.

Even for quite some time afterwards (about a decade or so), though, it would still have been possible to use this to explain what was shown in the aforementioned FF#286 and X-Factor. Not now, though. Way too much water under the bridge.

At least one panel of that is missing. In my recollection, to the right of the top row, there was a third panel in which Jean/Phœnix looks towards Kitty Pryde who had just placed her hand on Jean′s shoulder, and says, in the Phœnix word balloon (but still wearing the green Phœnix costume), ‶You won′t let!?" (shudder!)

I know it's just a "what if", but if you're going to make it ridiculous, then what's the point?

That seemed like a huge WTF to me too. The Punisher killed Daredevil, Spiderman (with Aunt May as collateral damage), Kingpin and the Mayor of New York just for good measure on the end?

This is after Secret Wars had already shown Spider Man basically being able to take on the whole X-Men and at least fight them to a draw coontil Professor X stepped in, since Spidey has no resistance/immunity to telepathy)

Also, apparently if Franklin Richards sister had lived, instead of being a mostly benign godlike reality warper like her brother that basically exists to be a cosmic reset button when the Marvel Universe gets too wacky, she would have essentially grown up to be Cthuhlu?

Kangaroo_Ralph:[What If? #43: ‶What If Conan the Barbarian were Stranded in the 20th Century?"]

Spoiler: Conan became a pimp.

That one had two stories, and was the only issue of the first run which consisted of sequels to previousWhat-If?s. The cover story was a sequel to What If? #13, ‶What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?". That one was a What If?of a What If?, because at the end of #13, Conan gets returned to his own time. The cover story of #43 shows What If he didn′t get back to his own time, by barely missing his chance to do so.

The second story has no title, and is a true continuation of its original story (What If? #23, ‶What If the Avengers had Become the Pawns of Korvac?"), not a What If?of a What If?. Both the original and this untitled sequel were written by the sadly late, great Mark Gruenwald.

It′s also a story that could′ve changed the entire future of the Marvel Comics Universe, had something happened in the real world. That something would be a sequel to this sequel, in a sense: ‶What If Kurt Busiek had Glanced at the Untitled Backup Story in What If? #32 (and, in Particular, the Bottom Middle Panel of the Second-to-Last Page Thereof) Before Telling John Byrne how Jean Grey could be made Available for X-Factor (as Byrne revealed in Fantastic Four #286) Despite her Sacrifice as Phœnix?"

How wildly different the Marvel Universe may be today if only Busiek had read that story! In those two issues (the first story seemingly having little to do with Jean/Phœnix, who only appears in one panel), Gruenwald had set up a vastly superior way to bring Jean Grey back, without undoing her heroic sacrifice in the classic Uncanny X-Men #137, and without claiming that Phœnix was never really Jean Grey in the first place (yeah, the Phœnix Entity not only managed to fool Professor X′s telepathy on multiple occasions, and Wolverine′s enhanced senses throughout the duration of her presence on the team despite not even being a real carbon-based biological lifeform, but she even fooled Uatu the Watcher himself [whose senses were supposed to be at least on the level of the Norse god Heimdall!] ― in the aforementioned UXM#137, the Watcher opens by saying [to the Recorder, but we don′t find that out until the end], ‶I beheld the birth of Jean Grey, watched her grow from child to woman, saw her take her place as one of the X-Men. I saw her die, and I saw her reborn as Phœnix."! And, at the end, he says to the Recorder, ‶Jean Grey could′ve lived to become a god, but it was more important to her that she die a human.").

If you actually have that comic, read that backup story. Reading #32 would be nice backstory, but not absolutely required.

Even for quite some time afterwards (about a decade or so), though, it would still have been possible to use this to explain what was shown in the aforementioned FF#286 and X-Factor. Not now, though. Way too much water under the bridge.

At least one panel of that is missing. In my recollection, to the right of the top row, there was a third panel in which Jean/Phœnix looks towards Kitty Pryde who had just placed her hand on Jean′s shoulder, and says, in the Phœnix word balloon (but still wearing the green Phœnix costume), ‶You won′t let!?" (shudder!)

I really enjoyed it but the defeat of the heros was just a re-hash of 'Wanted', down to the Skull's/Lex Luthor Expy's bit about "I knew the heros couldn't beat us if I got all the baddies together!". That part bugged me. Maybe DC didn't have the guts to let Millar screw with the 'real' heros of the DC universe so they made him run with the expys? I think it was done better here, anyways.

I know it's just a "what if", but if you're going to make it ridiculous, then what's the point?

Yeah but what if he did? I'm not saying he could but WHAT IF HE DID, ya know?

I've never found the Punisher entertaining in any way, personally.

Punisher is definitely okay ... in small doses. He's not the sort of character that can exist comfortably within the Marvel Universe as we know it. He can barely sustain one "real world" title, and Marvel just keeps wanting to overexpose him.

I really enjoyed it but the defeat of the heros was just a re-hash of 'Wanted', down to the Skull's/Lex Luthor Expy's bit about "I knew the heros couldn't beat us if I got all the baddies together!". That part bugged me. Maybe DC didn't have the guts to let Millar screw with the 'real' heros of the DC universe so they made him run with the expys? I think it was done better here, anyways.

/Laughed at every page for minutes. Selling Tony "The Drunk" Stark to A.I.M.? The "big battle" is a showdown on the Hairy Spranger Show. His archnemesis is the "Carnage Curl" - a vengeful ex-girlfriend who's pregnant with his baby, The Beyonder and Galactus? Spider-Man getting shot out of The Beyonder's Space-Limo by the driver Billy Oceanic? Doc Samson tell him, "There's nothing mentally wrong with you, you're just an asshole?" It's one of the few times in the past ten years I've anxiously waited for another issue to find out just how FAR they were going to take it... the whole thing has a stink-o'-AWESOME of Joe Kelly/Gail Simone-era DP all over it.

Super-Heroes take themselves too seriously. The world needs more Deadpool.

Max Awesome:ds615: Max Awesome: That series was always so ridiculously bleak. Everytime I read an issue I was struck by the realization that these Marvel 'heroes' were all complete psychopaths and all it took was a single slight change in events for them to freak out and start murdering everybody in sight.

That's true of pretty much everyone, not just "heroes".No one is a killer until they are.And what does it take to make you one? A "slight change in events", that's all.

I don't believe that. I have more faith in human nature and that a person's essential humanity can't be degraded by a few negative experiences.

I was always seriously disturbed by 'What If' - that the writers and editors at Marvel Comics had utterly no faith in the essential stability and decency of their superheroes.

Isn't the whole point of being heroic the ability to wheather a storm and do the right thing even in the most trying of circumstances?

Well, ole sad sack Parker and the dysfunctional Fantastic Four and X-man pretty much do that in regular continuity, so What If was finally a chance to cut loose and show you just how farked up the characters could be

/you can take it, big man//also, I'm thinking you might read Marvel only

I don't think that one's depressing ― those first two panels are almost laughable.

‶Jean, you ate another star!"‶Kitty, I don′t want to discuss this right now."

Like Kitty′s a daughter admonishing her mother for going back to smoking or having too many drinks after dinner.

Well, in the end... → Dark Phœnix kills Professor Xavier in psychic battle, then the rest of the X-Men, and Scott last of all. The Jean part of her is shocked by that last, the killing of her one true love, that instead of evil rage she now become self-destructive so that the Phœnix force utterly consumes her, then NYC, then the Earth, then spreads outwards from there. The Watcher could not bear to watch to see if it completely consumed that Universe or not.←

That was the worst body count of any What If? that I know of until the #32 that I mentioned in my previous post, about the Avengers becoming pawns of Korvac. At the end of that one...

→ Korvac had the Avengers slay and he absorb the powers of cosmic beings such as In-Betweener (destroying the Moon in the process, creating a ring around Earth), the Stranger, etc., and Galactus had been slain by Captain America wielding the Ultimate Nullifier (which it′s revealed in this issue completely nullifies the existence of both target and wielder, but requires the wielder to be able to focus his mind completely on the target, encompassing everything about it ― that aspect was later used in the mainstream Marvel Universe comics, an early sign that the non-parody What If?s really were in-continuity, albeit in diverged timestreams). With a thought he ejected Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer, and Phœnix from that universe entirely, establishing a barrier preventing them from returning. He created a force-field around the Earth blocking it from any further extra-terrestrial, extra-temporal, or extra-dimensional interference, and prepared to bring order to the Universe. Even the Living Tribunal can do no more against him than flee that Universe himself lest Korvac absorb him too, and in the process the L.T. seals off that Universe from all others to prevent its imminent destruction from destabilizing them.

But in the end, an armada of all other sapient species in the Universe assembled to invade Earth territory to challenge him, so he slew every remaining living being on Earth from the Celestials (who were doing their fifty-year judgment of Earth at the time) down to the microbes, absorbing their power and life force, and growing so large and powerful as a result that he sat on the planet as if it were a beach ball. But even so, he said that though he was now easily mightier than any being in the Universe, he was not mightier than every being in the Universe, and took their rejection of him and his plans rather personally, so he used the Ultimate Nullifier on the entire Universe (being now capable of visualizing the whole thing in his mind), utterly erasing it and himself. As soon as he pulled the trigger, ‶All becomes Nothing!" ― on a full page panel showing Eternity (the living incarnation of the Universe itself in Marvel comics) himself being wiped out.

The Watcher says that this one disturbed him more than any other, for from now on the total number of alternate timelines and universes in existence would ever be one less than ∞. The End ― until the sequel that was the untitled backup story in What If? #43 as I discussed in my previous post. (How could there possibly be a sequel to that!? Read it and find out!) ←

Hulk dies, not his wife. She's pissed, sucks up ALL the energy left from her planet (killing it), goes to earth, kills Iron Man, Dr Strange, Sentry, the Fantastic Four and most all the other heroes. Those that survive are used as slave labor for the next 21 years building a giant statue of the Hulk in Central park among the (still) ruins of New York. When the statue is complete, she climbs to the top and becomes stone, dying in the process.

limboslam:[i486.photobucket.com image 600x935][i486.photobucket.com image 659x1023]Hulk dies, not his wife. She's pissed, sucks up ALL the energy left from her planet (killing it), goes to earth, kills Iron Man, Dr Strange, Sentry, the Fantastic Four and most all the other heroes. Those that survive are used as slave labor for the next 21 years building a giant statue of the Hulk in Central park among the (still) ruins of New York. When the statue is complete, she climbs to the top and becomes stone, dying in the process.

And leaving their son in charge, who's in full Hulk mode 24/7. It's heavily implied that all of humanity is ruled by him and the survivors of the old planet.

Wow, it's amazing what you can find with just a few simple search terms.Not necessarily the best, but I loved the last panel.What if II #100: What if . . . Sinister Learned the Greatest Secrets of the Marvel Universe.